1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention relates to communication systems and, in particular, to an apparatus and method for delivering customized advertisements within interactive communications systems.
2. Background
Recently, a wide range of interactive devices have been developed to provide information to consumers. These interactive devices include, for example, computers connected to various computer on-line services, interactive kiosks, interactive television systems and the like. In particular, the popularity of computer on-line services has grown immensely in popularity over the last decade.
Computer on-line services are provided by a wide variety of different companies. In general, most computer on-line services are accessed via the Internet. The Internet is a global network of computers. The structure of the Internet is a network backbone with networks branching from the backbone. These branches, in turn, have networks branching from them, and so on. Routers move information packets from network to network, until the information packets reach their destination. For a more detailed description of the structure and operation of the Internet, please refer to xe2x80x9cThe Internet Complete Reference,xe2x80x9d by Harley Hahn and Rick Stout, published by McGraw-Hill, 1994.
One popular part of the Internet is the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web contains computers which display graphical and textual information. Computers which provide information on the World Wide Web are typically called xe2x80x9cwebsites.xe2x80x9d A website is defined by an Internet address which has an associated electronic page, often called a xe2x80x9chome page.xe2x80x9d Generally, a home page is an electronic document which organizes the presentation of text, graphical images, audio and video into a desired display. These websites are operated by a wide variety of entities which are typically called xe2x80x9ccontent providers.xe2x80x9d
A user may access the Internet using a home personal computer (PC) equipped with a conventional modem. Special interface software is installed within the PC so that when the user wishes to access the Internet, an attached modem is automatically instructed to dial the telephone number associated with the local Internet host server. The user can then access information at any address accessible over the Internet. Two well-known software interfaces, for example, are the Netscape Navigator developed by Netscape, Inc. and the Microsoft Internet Explorer developed by Microsoft Corporation.
Information exchanged over the Internet is typically encoded in HyperText Mark-up Language (HTML) format. The HTML format is a scripting language which is used to generate the home pages for different content providers. In this setting, a content provider is an individual or company that places information (content) on the Internet so that it can be accessed by others. As is well known in the art, the HTML format is a set of conventions for marking different portions of a document so that each portion appears in a distinctive format. For example, the HTML format identifies or xe2x80x9ctagsxe2x80x9d portions of a document to identify different categories of text (e.g., the title, header, body text, etc.). When a web browser accesses a HTML document, the web browser reads the embedded tags in the document so it appears formatted in the specified manner.
A HTML document can also include hyper-links which allow a user to move from one document to another document on the Internet. A hyper-link is an underlined or otherwise emphasized portion of text which, when selected using an input device such as a mouse, activates a software connection module which allows the user to jump between documents (i.e., within the same website or to other websites). Hyper-links are well known in the art, and are sometimes referred to as anchors.
Although the Internet and the World Wide Web, together with other interactive devices, are used widely to share information among different users, the full range of possibilities for use of these interactive computer services have not yet been fully developed.
As the popularity of the Internet and the World Wide Web has increased over the years, more companies are trying to find ways of promoting their product in a cost-effective manner. Thus, there has been a tremendous proliferation of corporate advertising across the Internet. For example, some companies such as Yahoo Corporation offer free services, such as the ability to search for particular sites on the Internet, but post advertising messages to consumers to help offset the cost of their service. Unfortunately, there is so far no effective way of targeting particular advertisements to those consumers most likely to use the product or service being offered. Therefore, a tremendous amount of advertising is wasted on promoting goods or services to an improper audience. As the number of people accessing the Internet increases, it will become more important to specifically target advertising to those individuals most likely to purchase the goods or services being offered. It will also be important for advertisers to know how effective a particular ad has become by tracking the responses of individual consumers. Unfortunately, there is currently no convenient mechanism for predetermining which users might be interested in a particular category of advertised goods or services. There is also no current method for tracking consumer responses to particular advertisements.
The system of the present invention overcomes the difficulties discussed above by providing an on-line advertising service which can custom tailor specific advertisements to particular consumers and track consumer responses to the advertisements. In particular, the present invention is a system and method for delivering customized advertisements to users of interactive devices. The interactive devices of the present invention can include computers connected to on-line services, interactive kiosks, interactive television systems and the like. In broad terms, the present invention includes a communications system having at least three different entities which communicate with each other. The entities include: a content provider, an advertisement provider and a consumer.
In the preferred embodiment, the invention is directed to delivering custom advertisements to consumers who use their computers to view information offered by different content providers existing on the Internet. Preferably, when a consumer accesses a content provider, the content provider transmits an electronic document to the consumer. Embedded within the electronic document is a advertisement request. When the consumer""s computer displays the electronic document, the embedded advertisement request directs the consumer computer to communicate with an advertisement provider. In response, the advertisement provider provides a customized advertisement. The advertisement provider then tracks the consumer""s response to the customized advertisement.
The advertisement provider operates a computer which is also connected to the Internet. The advertisement provider""s computer stores demographic information about consumers, and sends customized advertisements to the consumers based on the consumers demographic profile and tracks consumer responses to the customized advertisements. For example, when accessing a content provider""s website, a consumer with a demographic profile indicating an interest in farming would be sent customized advertisements for farm products by the advertisement provider. Customer requests from more information about the advertised farm products are also monitored.
A consumer who wishes to receive customized advertisements first registers with the advertisement provider by entering pertinent demographic information into the advertisement provider""s demographic database. The advertisement provider then retains a demographic profile of the consumer. In return, the advertisement provider assigns the consumer a unique member code. In an alternate embodiment, the consumer is sent unique software which enhances the consumer""s Internet browser so that custom advertisements can be merged with electronic documents obtained from the content provider.
The content provider websites also register with the advertisement provider before they can receive the customized advertisement services. During registration, the advertisement provider assigns a custom member code to the content provider, creates a program called a xe2x80x9ccontent provider scriptxe2x80x9d for each content provider, and transfers an xe2x80x9cadvertisement requestxe2x80x9d to the content provider which identifies the content provider script. Preferably, the content provider script contains the content provider""s member code. The advertisement request, on the other hand, contains commands which invoke the content provider script.
After obtaining the advertisement request, the content provider embeds the advertisement request into its electronic documents. When a registered consumer accesses a content provider""s website, the content provider website transfers the electronic document and the embedded advertisement request to the consumer""s computer. The embedded advertisement request directs the consumer computer to invoke the referenced content provider script in the advertisement provider computer. The advertisement provider executes the content provider script and obtains the content provider member code. The advertisement provider uses the content provider member code to track the number of advertisements displayed by a particular content provider.
In addition, to executing the content provider script, the advertisement provider also obtains the consumer""s member code from the consumer computer. The advertisement provider uses the consumer member code to identify the consumer""s demographic profile and preferences. The advertisement provider then selects an appropriate advertisement based on the consumer""s profile and sends the customized advertisement to the consumer computer. The consumer computer then merges the content provider""s electronic document with the advertisement provided by the advertisement provider to create a single displayed document to the consumer.
Another feature of the invention is directed to monitoring the particular advertisements which are viewed by particular consumers. With this information, advertisers can pay for advertising directed at specific demographic target groups. Additionally, advertisers may be billed by the advertisement provider based on actual delivery of the advertisements to pertinent consumers.
The invention also supports custom advertisements which can contain hyper-links to other information. The hyper-links typically direct the user""s Internet browser to access different websites on the Internet. For example, if a consumer wishes to obtain additional information about an advertised product or service, the consumer may simply use a mouse to select an embedded hyper-link in the custom advertisement and be immediately transported to an advertiser""s website. At the advertiser""s website, the user may receive a directed sales pitch, more information or a purchase order request form.
An additional feature of the invention allows the advertisement provider to monitor the number of advertisements viewed by consumers associated with a particular content provider. With this information, the content providers can receive advertising revenue based on the number of consumers who access their websites. This frees the content providers from having to generate advertising data, from having to individually contact advertisers, from having to negotiate advertising payment fees, and from having to maintain an advertising administrative staff.
Another aspect of the invention relates to the addition of a fourth category of entities C the Internet providers. An Internet provider is a service which provides Internet access to consumers. Examples of Internet providers include American Online, the Microsoft Network, Prodigy, Compuserve, and Network Intensive. Many users pay monthly access fees to the Internet providers to obtain local telephone connections, a variety of help services and an organized format for accessing the Internet.
When a consumer registers with the advertisement provider, this aspect of the present invention obtains information about the consumer""s Internet provider and stores this information in the demographic profile. The system of the present invention can then monitor the number of advertisements viewed by consumers associated with a particular Internet provider. Accordingly, the system of the present invention can pay an Internet provider based on the number of advertisements viewed by its consumers. The Internet providers can then use this advertising revenue to reduce consumer access fees.